The only good things that came out of the 1970s were the Steelers, the Reds (hey, I’m from Mississippi and we don’t have our own teams!!), some movies and some music.
Virginia Postrel has a couple of years on me, though she’s way ahead on looks and brains, and remembers why Reagan was so consequential:
Amazingly, his prescriptions worked. The economy got worse at first–much, much worse, so...

With the cutback in blogging around here I’ve had more time to read. Here’s a quick roundup:
* Dan Spencer has a number of good posts. For a post on the Zarqwi aid that was nabbed, look here. For a post on Kerry’s missed vote on the bioshield, look here. For a post on Kerry’s reduced idealism, look here.
* Spoons has an excellent link to the biggest dork on the planet. He’s not kidding.
*...

Economist.com | Searching for John Kerry’s economic policy: Is there a there, there?: In his opening efforts at developing an economic policy, John Kerry is all fiddle and not much thrust.
In fairness to Kerry, it’s early yet and he hasn’t developed a coherent economic policy. Most of his statements to date have been bashing Bush over jobs — though that will get more difficult...

U.S. Firms Add 308K New Jobs in March (washingtonpost.com)
It had to happen eventually. The only question was whether it would occur in time to benefit President Bush politically or if it occurred next year to the benefit of a President Kerry. One month is not a trend but job growth is pretty much an inevitability — the usual caveats about productivity apply — with a growing economy and...

Running On Ideas (washingtonpost.com)
It will be nice to see Fritz Hollings leave the Senate. It will be even better to see him replaced with a free trade advocate from a textile-heavy Congressional district. He also has some ideas on how people have become entirely too dependent on government. There are some good comments on how health care can be made more efficient through the use of HSAs as well.
DeMint’s...

That Big Fat Budget Deficit. Yawn.
I expect taxes to be increased in the next few years, the question is in what form and will it be combined with spending restraint and reform of entitlements. For the short term, the deficits don’t seem to be impacting interest rates in the bond markets.
Perhaps they won’t. The economy could indeed outgrow these deficits over the next decade. In fact,...

David Foster, of Photon Courier, has a post on import certificates based on an idea by Warren Buffett. I hope David doesn’t hold a grudge — he’s a frequent commenter here and I say this with all the love I can muster — but I hate this idea. I know Warren Buffett has more money than I’ll ever have and his opinions should be taken seriously — just not this one. Buffett...

WSJ.com – Payrolls Grow by 112,000 Jobs As Unemployment Rate Drops
This is a surprisingly sour report given that the unemployment rate dropped to 5.6% and the economy created 112,000 new jobs. The jobs number didn’t “meet expectations” and the jobs were created in industries that apparently usually shed jobs in January, such as construction and retail.
I’m still having...

The European Predicament (washingtonpost.com)
If there’s ever been an argument in favor of entitlements reform, it can be summed up in one word: Europe. Their economy is so saddled with regulations and has such a large fiscal burden that they can’t grow, even in relatively prosperous times. Party hats come out if unemployment drops below 8%.
Without entitlements reform, that’s what...

One of the horrors of staying in hotels a good bit is that you don’t always get to see your news channel of choice, mine being FNC. Right now I’m suffering through another installment of Lou Dobbs’s “Exporting America” and just listened to some asshat Congressman say that the current wave of outsourcing is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression; with unemployment...